One advantage of marriage is that, when you fall out of love with him or he falls out of love with you, it keeps you together until you fall back in love again.
Judith Viorst
If you intend to enjoy lasting love—a marriage that withstands the test of time—what can you anticipate will change and what can you trust to remain the same? In the first three chapters of this book we looked at reimagining your marriage, exploring why marriage is such hard work, why it’s worth the effort, and cultural trends that warrant some reflection. We also discussed new ways of thinking about your relationship. In the next six chapters we looked at specific ways you can revitalize your marriage by changing the ways you and your spouse relate to each other. In these last chapters, we will explore how to make love last by casting a new vision for your marriage. This new vision is built on the foundation of your promise to each other, which creates the impetus for the new possibilities of your relationship. What can your marriage become?
When a cocoon turns into a butterfly, some parts of the caterpillar remain the same while most parts are transformed into a completely new creature. The parts that stay the same, the imaginal cells, are critical to the process of transformation into the new state. The metamorphosis of marriage is like that. Some parts remain constant while other parts enter the process of becoming something new.
The Contingent Marriage
My husband and I recently bought a house. The paperwork nearly buried us. I had forgotten how much there is to sign and the time it takes to read the fine print. Perhaps the most nail-biting moment in our transaction was the removal of contingencies. In a market where there are lots of buyers, sellers give priority to buyers who have no contingencies. They want to know there’s no way the buyer can back out.
Removing all the “ifs” sealed the deal. We now own the house and we haven’t looked back. Removing all contingencies in the most important relationship of your life can be nerve-racking as well.
At the urging of my daughter-in-law, I recently watched a television program called Married at First Sight. This reality series conducts a social experiment in which three couples meet at the altar without knowing anything about their future spouses—only that they have been matched by a panel of experts.
As I watched this show, I couldn’t help but wonder what would attract someone to sign up for this blind commitment. Some of the participants appeared to have long dating histories with no apparent success in finding that special someone. Perhaps giving the “experts” permission to locate their match would take away their guesswork (and, hopefully, their relationship difficulties).
They apparently had more confidence that strangers would be wiser than they would be in making this important life decision. Perhaps they saw their risk as a small investment with potentially high gains, much like a low-cost, high-yield stock, especially since the couples were offered the option of a quick divorce after five weeks if things didn’t work out.
What does marriage mean to those willing to meet at the altar and potentially divorce five weeks later? What does marriage mean to you? Is it a mere contract that can be entered or broken at will? Or is it something greater, something beyond a signed agreement with exit clauses?
The Meaning of Marriage
To some, marriage is an antiquated notion. They view marriage as a piece of paper that is not really necessary if two people love each other, although they may acknowledge it can provide some legal or practical benefits. Others see marriage as a contract between two people to meet each other’s needs, live together, and possibly raise a family. In this contemporary view, the relationship is legitimately sustainable only if the needs of each partner are being met. Since the individual’s happiness is the primary value, feelings of love and romance are the glue of the contractual relationship. Once the glue loses its stickiness, the contract is no longer deemed binding.
Many marriages operate with such unspoken contingencies. Marriage is seen as a conditional arrangement that protects the rights of both parties in the event one fails to live up to the other’s expectations. It focuses attention on what each spouse is or is not contributing to the relationship. It provides an “out” if either partner is perceived as not living up to his or her end of the bargain. The contractual marriage, with its option of “no-fault divorce,” allows for dissolution of the marriage if one party isn’t feeling love.
Years ago, I attended a wedding that took place in a beautiful outdoor setting with all the family and many friends gathered. The bride was a bit of a free spirit and the groom was a likable, easygoing sort of guy. They looked extremely happy that day, and I thought they would enjoy a long life together. But as they gave each other their vows, they said they were committed “as long as we both shall love.”
How long will that last? I wondered. Turns out, after having two sons, they divorced, remarried, and divorced again. True to their vows, their promise stuck as long as they felt love and dissolved when the feeling waned.
There have been many times in my years of marriage when I haven’t felt love for my husband. There have been plenty of moments when I’ve been seething mad and seasons when I’ve felt disconnected. We have a fantastic marriage now. But if we had made feelings of love the criteria for staying together we would have split long ago and missed enjoying the fruit of our labor—and, yes, I mean labor.
Most of us marry with the idea that we are committing to a lifelong relationship. You can’t predict the kinds of challenges you will face as you enter marriage. The difficulties are often more than you expected. The realization that you can feel hate for someone you also love can come as a surprise. You can argue passionately over silly little issues as if they were monumental. Your attitude about what marriage is will shape how you navigate those unexpected challenges.
The Power of a Promise
When you state your wedding vows and make a promise to love, honor, and cherish your beloved all the days of your life, you are exercising your freedom in a life-changing way. You are saying that no matter what your history, no matter what your limitations, no matter what the future brings, “I choose you.” It is paradoxical in that you are freely choosing to bind yourself to one person for a lifetime. You are restricting your freedom, forsaking all others, to ensure love. It is the supreme exercise of choice.
The protection provided by promising is captured in a Thornton Wilder play called The Skin of Our Teeth when one character tells the other, “I didn’t marry you because you were perfect. I didn’t even marry you because I loved you. I married you because you gave me a promise. That promise made up for your faults. And the promise I gave you made up for mine. Two imperfect people got married and it was the promise that made the marriage. And when our children were growing up, it wasn’t a house that protected them; and it wasn’t our love that protected them—it was that promise.”1
The Judeo-Christian view is that marriage is a promise to love another person unconditionally all the days of your life. There is an old word for this kind of commitment: covenant. A covenant is light-years apart from a contractual agreement, as it is far more creative and compelling. Let me explain.
Covenant is a biblical term originally used to describe the nature of God’s relationship with the Israelites.2 God had chosen them to be his people and had bound himself to them with irrevocable promises to be with them. It was a unilateral promise that ensured ongoing relationship. The Israelites could mess up—and they did, many times—but God would not abandon them. If they strayed from the covenant, they would not experience the blessings that the secure relationship could provide, but he would not leave them. The relationship was safeguarded.
Although we don’t often think of being a parent as having a “covenant” with our children, the way in which we relate to them is very covenantal. We may not like how they behave at any given moment, but we are committed to loving them regardless. Despite our momentary anger or frustration, we’ve made an inherent promise to be their parent and be present no matter what happens. It is a one-sided offer that says, “This is how things will always stand between us.”3
The Bible also speaks of marriage as a covenant. In Malachi 2:14, a man is reminded that his spouse is “your partner, the wife of your marriage covenant.” Proverbs 2:17 refers to an unfaithful wife who has “left the partner of her youth and ignored the covenant she made before God.” To enter a covenant is to make a one-sided promise to love and be faithful to the other for life. It is unilateral in that you are making a promise to God to love your mate, regardless of how they may love or fail to love you.
When you married you likely took vows that promised this kind of constancy. You may have spoken traditional vows, such as, “I take you to be my lawfully wedded husband, and I do promise and covenant, before God and these witnesses, to be your loving and faithful wife. In plenty and in want, in joy and in sorrow, in sickness and in health, as long as we both shall live.”
Or perhaps you wrote your own vows. Hopefully you have saved your vows in written form or on a wedding video. Take them out and review them from time to time. They likely included a promise from each of you to love the other for life.
Does the idea of making a covenant promise to love someone without contingencies seem crazy or reckless? To be sure, it is risky. But it is also transformational.
Covenantal marriage changes us. It is to say to our spouse, “I will always be there for you. No matter what happens or what changes, I will be tenacious in how I love you. When you are irritable and frustrated, I will exercise patience. When we fight and argue, I will stretch myself to see your viewpoint and work toward restoring our relationship. I will not expect perfection but will give you room to grow. When my feelings for you have dried up, I will trust that the rains will come and will refresh and renew our love. When we grow distant and life pulls us apart, I will pursue you for connection and work with you to set limits on what causes us to disengage. When we are at odds and I am tempted to look elsewhere for my needs to be met, I will protect myself from seeking love from someone else. I will have eyes only for you. I believe we can work and will give our relationship my all. And when we are thriving and content, I will celebrate our love, marvel at our journey, and continue to invest in strengthening our marriage through all our days ahead.”
The marriage covenant is an enduring, total commitment that says, “This is how I will always be toward you.” Unlike a contract, it is not conditional or dependent on met expectations or feelings of love. It is within the security of this promise that you can both be freed to truly be yourselves. You create the safety necessary for love to grow. As Daniel Brown points out, “The promises act as benevolent restrictions, eliminating unsettling options. The promise to love does away with the prospect of not loving.”4
This kind of promise-keeping is powerful. Author Lew Smedes states:
When you make a promise, you tie yourself to the other person by the unseen fibers of loyalty. You agree to stick with people you are stuck with. When everything else tells them they can count on nothing, they count on you. When they do not have the faintest notion of what in the world is going on around them, they will know that you are going to be there with them. You have created a small sanctuary of trust within the jungle of unpredictability: You have made a promise that you intend to keep.5
This sanctuary of trust is imperative for love to grow. When the thrill of infatuation is gone, and you begin to experience real life with a real mate, the covenant you have entered will keep you together while love matures.
With the assurance that your marriage will withstand the tests of time and challenges, you and your spouse are liberated to expose your true selves. And when you bring your true selves to each other, the ground is fertile for growth.
Some have argued that having this certainty would cause couples to take each other for granted. They claim that having some insecurity about the relationship forces both parties to keep their game sharp and put their best foot forward. I have never seen evidence of this. What I do see in couples who are unable to fully commit is a guardedness and self-protection that keep them from being themselves. They hide from each other and focus on what they’re not getting from the relationship. They feel unsafe exposing their vulnerabilities because they don’t trust their mates to be there for them.
Viewing marriage as a permanent union has significant benefits. It provides a foundation that allows you to withstand the tremors of disillusioned expectations, conflicting needs, and waning feelings of love. It’s like a seismic retrofit on your relationship that helps it withstand all the pulls and shakes of life.
When James and Amy entered therapy, they were caught in the insecure tension of not knowing whether their relationship would last. It was clear to Amy that James was not meeting her needs for time and attention. She was considering a separation as a way of alerting James to the depth of her pain.
James experienced an increasing demand from Amy to be available, which made him feel stifled and inadequate. He, too, was considering leaving to relieve himself of the burden of her emotional needs.
With each being unsure of the commitment of the other, their protectors were working hard to guard their own positions.
During four months of therapy, James became aware of Amy’s young part that longed for connection with her father. He realized that his pulling away was activating her fear of not being wanted, not belonging. He also became more conscious of how he had, early in life, cut himself off from his own need for closeness, since such desires were dismissed by his parents.
One afternoon James entered my office with a sense of determination. “I have something I want to say to Amy,” he announced.
Amy looked puzzled. “What is it?” she asked, clearly caught off guard.
“I just want you to know, I’m not going anywhere. I am in this for good.”
Amy teared up. “What do you mean?”
James took her hand. “When you were talking about your young part last week, and you said she was worried I might leave, it hit me. She needs to know I’m staying.”
Tears streamed down Amy’s face. “That feels really good.” Her shoulders relaxed, as if offloading a heavy burden. She squeezed James’s hand. “I want you to know I’m all-in too.”
“I’m glad.” James smiled. “I love you, Amy, and I’m willing to do whatever it takes to make our marriage work. I know I’ve got some changing to do. I hope you can be patient.”
“Knowing you’re open to growing is all I need,” Amy said. “I’ll try to give you more space.”
James and Amy were beginning to reap the rewards of committed love. By taking the prospect of leaving off their plate, they were free to reinvest energy in their growth as a couple. Their openness to self-awareness and compassionate understanding of each other paved the way for the transformation of their marriage they had been seeking.
The promise to stay is like the imaginal cells of the cocoon, so necessary to its metamorphosis into a butterfly. (If you have been thinking about your marriage in a more contractual way, and you would like to re-vision your marriage as a covenant relationship, see appendix C.)
Discussion Questions: Chapter 10
Group and Couple Questions
1. Have you been seeing your marriage as more of a contract or a covenant? Where do you notice any contingencies that have slipped into your thinking about your relationship?
2. “To enter a covenant is to make a one-sided promise to love and be faithful to the other for life. It is unilateral in that you are making a promise to God to love your mate regardless of how they love or fail to love you.” When you think about making such a unilateral promise, what feelings come up for you? Read Malachi 2:14, Proverbs 2:17, and Matthew 19:3–9. How does a covenant commitment make a difference in how you view marriage?
3. Lew Smedes states,
When you make a promise, you tie yourself to the other person by the unseen fibers of loyalty. You agree to stick with people you are stuck with. When everything else tells them they can count on nothing, they count on you. When they do not have the faintest notion of what in the world is going on around them, they will know that you are going to be there with them. You have created a small sanctuary of trust within the jungle of unpredictability: You have made a promise that you intend to keep.6
Have you, at some time in your marriage, experienced that “small sanctuary of trust”? How has your promise made this possible?
4. If you still know or have a copy of your vows, you might want to take some time to share them in your group. Notice together what commitments you made. You might even want to renew your vows (see appendix C) with your group as witnesses.